Valuing Culture and Heritage Capital: A framework towards informing decision making
This document sets out DCMS’s approach to valuing the benefits provided by culture and heritage assets.
Applies to England
Documents
Details
This document sets out DCMS’s approach to value the benefits of culture and heritage assets to society. The valuation of benefits and costs plays an important role in deciding how the government should spend taxpayers’ money. Sector specific guidance is already available to value the impact of interventions in crime, environment, health and transport. It is important that similar guidance is also available to help guide decisions on culture and heritage. The outlined approach will not only be applicable to the public sector, but can also act as a useful tool to assess the public benefit of private assets. Therefore, this approach can be used by anyone who wants to understand their impact on society.
The document includes a framework diagram, similar to that used in the measurement of natural capital, which demonstrates how culture and heritage assets contribute to achieving the outcomes we seek as individuals and as a society. While the document is aimed at practitioners, and the programme will use complex and novel economic methods, the document is designed to be used and understood without prior knowledge of valuation methods or the culture and heritage sectors. You will find explanations of the key concepts and methods as well as an outline of the resources the Culture and Heritage Capital Programme will provide in the coming years.